CONTENTS

 
   about
   MICHAEL BETANCOURT NEWS
   movies: AESTHETICS
   movies: NEWS & REVIEWS
   movies: SHOWS & SCREENINGS
   random art notes
   random how-tos
   research: AVANT-GARDE MOVIES
   research: MOTION GRAPHICS
   research: VISUAL MUSIC
   theory: CRITICAL OBSERVATIONS
   theory: DIGITAL CAPITALISM
   theory: GLITCH & POSTDIGITAL
   theory: working notes

 

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Glitch Theory: Art and Semiotics by Michael Betancourt
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SEARCH ARCHIVES

archives begin in 1996

  

Analyzing Abstraction

story © Michael Betancourt | published October 9, 2005 | permalink | TwitThis Digg Facebook StumbleUpon  |  Print



theory: working notes

I have written some notes on abstraction (.pdf) that might be of interest.






 
Videos Cause Blindness

story © Michael Betancourt | published August 18, 2005 | permalink | TwitThis Digg Facebook StumbleUpon  |  Print



theory: working notes

Here is the full story. Strong emotions may cause short bursts of blindness!






 
Stationary Culture

story © Michael Betancourt | published June 7, 2005 | permalink | TwitThis Digg Facebook StumbleUpon  |  Print



theory: working notes

Here are some questions that have been bothering me lately:

  • Why has so much technology-based culture gotten "stuck" in the 1970s? (The "best" albums for scratch, and most common samples all come from 1970s funk and disco.)

  • Does the continuous extension of copyright serve to prevent cultural innovation by allowing companies to continually recycle older creations where each new issue is essentially all profit, instead of funding new work?

  • Since 1950, a great deal of both high and popular culture are simply recycling earlier innovations: what is causing this cycle?





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    Technological Failure

    story © Michael Betancourt | published January 7, 2005 | permalink | TwitThis Digg Facebook StumbleUpon  |  Print



    theory: working notes

    Any technology dependent art is subject to two kinds of technological failure. The first is familiar and obvious: those glitches, stoppages, etc. that happen when our technology fails to work properly; the second comes in the form of obsolesence, the failure of technology due to its having been replaces, revised, updated or otherwise pushed out-of-use. The greatest problem for all tech-dependent art is what happens when the second of these has come to pass and it is no longer possible to view the art because the tech it depends upon no longer exists? We are already seeing the early stages of this with art that relies upon the internet for its existence, or that depends upon particular software/hardware combinations (punchards, 8-inch floppy disks, etc.) that are no longer in use.

    The fate of any tech-dependent art work is ultimately one of staying live or vanishing all together.






     
    Vertical and Horizontal Time

    story © Michael Betancourt | published May 12, 2004 | permalink | TwitThis Digg Facebook StumbleUpon  |  Print



    theory: working notes
    Typically we move between both the vertical and horizontal poles of looking in relation to time, even within a single frame.




    read more